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559-3580
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THUR. & FRI. 10-9
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January 12, 13th
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OFF
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04
Q.C61.
Appard
n
. Applegate Square
Northwestern Highway & Inkster Road
10-5:30 Daily
10-8:00 Thursday
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PURCHASING
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SALE!
353-5522
POST•HOLIDAY PURCHASING POWER SALE!
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19011 West Ten Mile Rd., Southfield
(Between Southfield and Evergreen)
352-1080
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Thursday 9:30 a.m.-7:00 p.m.
Parking and Entrance in Rear
Expires 1/31/90
34
FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 1990
Jewish Community
In Syria Doomed?
ARTHUR J. MAGIDA
Special to The Jewish News
D
oes an "irresistible
cultural alienation"
spell the end of the
Jewish community in Syria?
That question, posed by
journalist Milton Viorst in
the New Yorker, is answered
by a series of hedges. "Mass
flight" will become
"inevitable," writes Viorst,
if the number of Syrian Jews
declines to a level where
community life is "no longer
viable."
In the Syrian city of
Aleppo, the Jewish popula-
tion "already seems below
the viability level." But
Damascus's Jewish com-
munity, believes its highest
lay official, Dr. Nessim
Hasbani, will "retain its
critical mass."
"The test," said Viorst,
"will come when peace is
made between Syria and
Israel, and that may be far
in the future."
In the meantime, Viorst
observes that most of
Damascus's Jews are in
business their living stan-
dards are generally "well
above" the Syrian average.
Many are also doctors, but
few are lawyers or teachers,
since success in these profes-
sions, notes Viorst, depends
on one's ties to the ruling
Baath Party.
After the 1967 Six Day
War, he writes, Jews were
forbidden to travel more
than a few miles from their
home, transfer property, at-
tend universities, or obtain
visas to go abroad. Many
were imprisoned without
charges or trials.
After Hafez al-Assad
became Syria's president in
1971, he proclaimed recon-
ciliation with the imprison-
ed Jews and conditions im-
proved. When the Israeli
army threatened Damascus
in October 1973, Assad sent
troops to protect the Jewish
Quarter against angry
Damascene mobs. In 1974,
he formally met with Jewish
leaders to hear their
grievances, and two years
later repealed the anti-
Jewish laws.
Since then, Jews have
been legally equal to other
Syrians, "with," says Viorst,
"one crucial hitch. The new
legislation has empowered
the mukhabarat [Syria's
secret police] to review all
Jewish rights and to suspend
Hafez al-Assad:
Improved conditions.
any that it deems threaten-
ing to Syria's security."
Dr. Hasbani described the
Jewish community's rela-
tions with the mukhabarat
as "ambiguous . . . They can
be very hard on us, but we
can also go to them with
problems, and they help us
solve them. They think of us
as their clients, and they
sometimes act as our ad-
vocates within the bureau-
cracy."
The PLO Plus One Year:
New And 'Disappointed'
In the year since Yassir
Arafat announced that the
Palestine Liberation
Organization had renounced
terrorism and now sought a
negotiated settlement with
Israel, the PLO has kept
these commitments, accor-
ding to "a number" of
Western and Egyptian dip-
lomats and analysts ap-
proached by the Washington
Post.
But these same diplomats
assert that the PLO has not
done enough to persuade
Israeli public opinion that it
is sincere about its new posi-
tions and that they are per-
manent, reported the Post's
Caryle Murphy. And PLO of-
ficials say they believe that
American and European
public opinion has become
more sympathetic to the
Palestinian cause, yet they
are disappointed in their
dialogue with the United
States.
Nayef Hawatmeh, head of